Ryan Kaufman was the official Star Wars
continuity supervisor at LucasArts. Keeping the continuity of the Star
Wars universe on such games as Republic Commando and Revenge
of The Sith (and also being a writer on those games). From time
to time he also writes for the Star Wars Insider and the Clone
Wars Adventures comics. Given his huge knowledge of all things Star
Wars I could have asked him a lot about it. But I didn't, as he has
more important things to share with us, like his input on the flavor
of Astronaut Ice Cream.
Actually he works at Planet Moon
Studios (creators of Armed & Dangerous) where he for
example, is a lead designer on After Burner: Black Falcon for
the PSP. But his adventures on the game industry began years ago, when
he was a tester on games like Full Throttle, TIE Fighter,
Afterlife and of course The Dig.What
can you tell us about Ryan Kaufman's world? is it a happy place?

Not sure if the world
is happy, but I'm pretty happy in it. So. Screw the world. :)

Cosmopolitan-kind
of-question: Tea or coffee?

Both! Coffee gets me
going, and tea keeps me running.

What were the first
games you remember having played at youth?

I programmed on the Commodore
64. We wrote our own games by copying lines out of a book. It was pretty
sad. The first one I copied was a psychologist who would ask you questions
and repeat back your answer in the form of a new question. The second
was a program that took me hours to copy, then ended up using too much
memory, so I couldn't run it. Story of my life.

So, how did you got
into LucasArts?

I went to high school
with Mark Cartwright, who ran the LucasArts QA department for many years.
After I graduated college and was unemployed, I ran into Mark at a New
Year's party. I was completely sloppy drunk and babbling incoherently.
I was surly and smelled funny. From that, Mark decided that I would
make a good tester.

Getting paid to play
games in development. What could be better? There is a catch isn't it?
Come on, there has to be a catch.

Yes, the catch is that
generally 99% of the people who play your game will hate your game.
They will also often hate you. You will run into these people at cocktail
parties. In fact, these are the only people you will meet at cocktail
parties. The world is divided into two kinds of people: those who hate
your game, and those who have never heard of it. Or maybe that's just
me.

Tell us about the
testing process. Do you intentionally go to places or try different
things looking for bugs or just play the games normally?

First thing you do when
you arrive in the morning, you sit down and you play through normally.
You play through every way you can think of, with all the objects you
are supposed to use. Then, boredom sets in. You start to experiment.
Then you get angry, and you try to find bugs everywhere. Then, you begin
to experience a cold, creeping fear that you will never escape test.
You curl into a small ball, and suck your thumb. Then you start talking
to the characters in the game, wondering if they love you. Then, you
check your watch. It's probably about lunchtime, so you get up and go
out with your friends.

Okay, okay, serious boring answer follows: You really do try and play
thru normally. You look for major problems and suggest new possibilities.
Then, as the game gets more solid, you start to get creative and try
to find unexpected bugs. Then, finally, you use what they call a Test
Plan, which is a list of every item combined with every other item,
and you have to go through and test them all. That part is pretty robotic
and awful.

Do
you recall if The Dig was particularly "bugged"?

The Dig had its fair
share of bugs, mainly because it was such a big game. My favorite bug
was where, if you talked to Maggie in a certain area, her head would
detach and float offscreen. It was very awkward to talk to her after
this happened.

What is your
opinion of the finished game?

I really liked it. Of course, I never wanted to see it again because
I'd played it so much already. :) But as an adventure game, I thought
it was great. The art was fantastic, the music was great, and it had
that ... I don't know... that feeling of having taken a really long
journey. (Well, duh.)
What do you think that was good about those old games as opposed to
the more technology-driven games of today?

I think game genres are
often a refection of how the platform technology is used by people.
Adventure games were really popular at a time when PCs were used by
a small(ish) group of people who tended to be thoughtful, curious, and
interested in very cerebral puzzles.

Nowadays, computers are used by a much wider range of people, who want
very different experiences.

As far as the technology question goes, we can't totally blame technology.
After all, games like Myst became popular because people started getting
these new CD-ROM drives and they wanted something to play on it.

So, my long-winded boring-ass answer is summed up thusly: I love the
old adventure games, and I think they continue to live on in a different
form. Check out Oblivion, Zelda, or either of the KOTOR
games and tell me if you can't see the heavy influence of old-school
adventure games there.

Rumor says you've
tasted Astronaut Ice cream. What is your report?

It tastes EXACTLY like ice cream, except it's warm and dry as a Saltine.
Other than that, no difference.

Heh. Anyway, this weird question comes courtesy of The Dig Survival
Kit that LucasArts created when the game came out. It was a box
that had a copy of the game, the audio book, the novel, a compass, a
keychain, a rabbit's foot, a sponge, some hair, a tooth, a pink ribbon,
and a packaged freeze-dried ice cream... aka Astronaut Ice Cream.

Okay, some of that I made up, but most of it is true.
What is the first thing you would do if you were stranded in a deserted
alien world??

I'd ask myself the same
question I ask every morning of my life: WWBD - What Would Boston Do?

And ...what
is the LAST thing you would do?

Resurrect an alien turtle. It's pointless, trust me.Any anecdote from your time at The
Dig project?

Nothing that I could
say without legal troubles. :)

Have you been
in The Dig's pizza orgy?

I'm sure I was, but I can't remember it. We had many, many pizza orgies
over the years. They were all great, but now they sort of blend into
one. Which is, I guess, the point of an orgy anyway.You
were one of the lead designers on the ill-fated Full Throttle 2.
What is your message to everyone who so unfairly hated it?

I'll answer as Ben would
have liked: First, a vicious head-butt, and then we can talk about why
you would've loved it.

Now a philosophical
question. When a character dies in a video game....where do you believe
he or she goes?

Good question, and one that people do not ask me often enough. I believe
they get reincarnated as characters in comic books. Then, they get reincarnated
as characters in films... then novels... then operas... then paintings...
sculptures... and finally real human beings. And then, American Idol
contestants. And then cockroaches.